and its words are not mere words that came uppermost, as though some other words might have done as well. They hold the germ of which the preaching of all true evangelists on to the end of time will be but the manifold expansion. First things are significant things; especially first things in the history of a dispensation; we may look, therefore, for peculiar significance in this sentence.

I. It is interesting to have here, the first title under which Christ was proclaimed by a messenger from heaven after His crucifixion. He is announced as 'Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified.' Because you are so familiar with the sound of these words, they may not at their first blow strike you as remarkable; but remarkable they are, not only because they hold the seeds of an infinite revelation, but because, although they are used by the angel as words most expressive of glorious distinction, they had just been chosen by the scorners of Christ as the most exquisite expression of contempt. Lightly, but reverently, let our thoughts now touch these words, one by one.

(1.) Jesus.' Just before His birth, the angel who announced His coming said, Call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.' Just after His resurrection, the angel who announced it chose for the very first word of the title he ascribed to Him, the word 'Jesus!'

Was it not likely to have been the same angel? And would not his triumphant spirit cry, 'All glory to the Lord! Now, at last, He has fulfilled His name. He has saved His people from their sins! Henceforth this Name shall be above every name; that at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth!' Meaning is everything in religion, and, now we know what the name of Jesus means, we say, there can be no name like it. All through our life in time let us sing with Bernard, This Name is sweetness in the mouth, music in the ear, joy in the heart; '1 and all through our life in eternity, let us expect to penetrate deeper and deeper into the soul of its beauty, and glory, and meaning.

(2.) Jesus of Nazareth.' To the Jews of this period, for reasons not now fully known, all that was base, low, and wicked in social condition seems to have been summed up in this name, and, of all names, it would have seemed to them the last to admit of glorification. Yet Jesus adopted it; and His herald, in this first proclamation of His titles, announced Him as 'Jesus of Nazareth.' It must have been by the will of the Sovereign that this should be the first title of His heard in this world after He rose from the grave, for

1 Nomen Jesu est mel in ore, melos in aure, et jubilum in corde.

the angels always do His will; and the utmost prayer for our own accordance with His will, is that it may 'be done on earth as it is in heaven.' The rising sun struck this black flake of cloud, and suddenly kindled it into burning gold. When I feel myself to be 'the chief of sinners;' when I feel the meanness of sin, so that I am ashamed to look up; when my spirit is almost stung to death at the thought of unworthiness, I most feel the charm of this, as the title under which Christ was first proclaimed, after He had 'endured the sharpness of death, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.' Oh! my spirit's Prince, I will love Thee for Thy love to Nazareth.

(3.) 'Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified.' To be crucified was to come under the ban of the words, 'Cursed is he that hangeth upon a tree.' Hung upon a tree by strand of rope, or spike of nail, it made no difference-he who was crucified was, all the same, hung upon a tree, and was looked upon by the Jew as having undergone the last and lowest anathema.1 If a Pharisee had been asked on that day, 'Who is He that is called Christ?' he would have said with

1 I think it is Dr. Gill who, speaking of the bitter contempt shown by the Jewish commentators, tells us that the Talmud speaks of Jesus as 'the Hung;'-, and of His followers asy, 'the servants of the Hung.'

passionate abhorrence, 'Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified;' and then would have felt that the language of loathing could no further go. It was infamy to be crucified, and to be crucified under the name of 'Jesus of Nazareth' was infamy on infamy. No greater insult, it was thought, could be expressed in words, than that of the inscription put over the dying head, 'Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.' The spirit of the angel's language is, 'We accept this inscription; the Name of Christ is Jesus; He is of Nazareth; He was crucified.' The words chosen by diabolic malice, as if to make the very cross of the cross, and the shame of the shame, were words that the angel seemed to be proud of, and the last phrase of degradation which His enemies flung at Him on earth was the first title under which He is proclaimed by a flaming prophet from heaven! He glorifies these very words of contempt. He puts new wine into these old bottles-empties them of disgrace, and fills them with splendour when he opens the dispensation by calling Christ Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified.'

II. Here also we have, from the lips of a messenger from heaven, the first notice of Christ's resurrection. The notice is twofold; 'He is risen; He is not here;' in the present homily there is only space left for comment on the first of these two statements.

(1.) He is risen.' When this fact is first made known to us, we stand astounded before what is at once a mystery and a miracle. It is a mystery. No one saw Him rise. Perhaps from an imperative nature, or from a scientific habit of mind, you are bent on plucking the heart out of the mystery; you insist on knowing all about it before you commit yourself; and you are ready to say, if Christ rose from the dead, you resolve to know how He did it: but this you will never know. If you smile at me, and say that you mean to try, let me say that, as you learn the alphabet before you learn the language; learn the elements of a science before you reach its conclusions; so in this line of discovery, you must begin with smaller things before you master the greatest. Begin with the mysteries that are nearest. To say that the resurrection of Jesus is a mystery, is to say but little. You are a mystery; the tiniest thing you touch, the commonest thing you see, is a mystery; every leaf holds a secret, and every grain of sand; first, know these secrets-know the secret of the tint that fringes a daisy; know the secret of crystallisation that shoots in the snow-flake; know the secret whence the gorse gets its bloom, and how the rose distils its fragrance; then from the lower things rise to the higher, until you rise high enough to know the secret of Christ's resurrection. But there is